


Before the End

by Novelistangel (NovelistAngel23)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood, Gen, Minor Character Death, Prequel, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 22:37:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14924171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NovelistAngel23/pseuds/Novelistangel
Summary: The infection changed everything. Before, the safety of home was guaranteed and expected. Now Dustin and Ash pick through the remains of society and fight for survival. The only way they'll make it is if they learn to trust each other.And for two complete strangers, that might be the most difficult challenge of all.





	Before the End

“Psst! Earth to Space Cadet!” a familiar voice hissed, followed by the unexpected snap of a rubber band against my shoulder.

The sting was enough to bring me out of my daze, whipping around in fury to see my Jared snickering as Sarah kicked the back of his thigh. “You’re such a dumbass; you want Señora Castillo to send you to detention again if she catches you with that thing?” she scolded, brushing her long blonde hair out of her face.

Jared didn’t seem to care, green eyes sparkling with mirth and heavily freckled cheeks dimpled as he grinned at me. It was still five minutes or so until class started and according to his Class Clown logic, that meant he had free reign until our Spanish teacher walked through the door. I rubbed my shoulder ruefully as he leaned against my desk. “I just wanted to know what Space Cadet here was daydreaming about. Pretty girl on the brain?”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Same old Jared. He only ever thought about girls, parties, and pranks. Sarah’s tutoring was probably the only reason he kept up the C-average preventing him from being kicked off the baseball team. “Get your mind out of the gutter, asshole,” I snorted, but my smile showed that it was all in jest.

Sarah smirked at me. “Besides, you know Ash only ever has zombies on the brain these days.”

My sheepish smile gave it away. “You got me.”

Jared groaned exaggeratedly, slumping over Sarah’s desk. We both looked at him with unimpressed expressions. “God you are so boring,” he complained, but there was a fond smile on his face. “It’s always zombie this, zombie that with you.”

I raised an eyebrow at him, leaning my elbow on Sarah’s desk behind mine and resting my chin in my palm. “As opposed to flirting with every girl I come across?” I challenged.

Jared stood up straighter with an expression so offended you’d think I’d insulted his mother. “You can’t defame me like this!” he gasped. He smirked wide and jerked his thumb back to Sarah. “I would _never_ flirt with bitch face over there.”

“Good,” she retorted, crossing her arms and flashing him a bitch face for the ages.

But it was then that Señora Castillo entered the classroom, sending Jared scurrying back to his seat in the back of the room. Sarah and I shared a look. Jared played big, but he was a scaredy cat when it came to actually getting in trouble. We both faced front again, handing our homework to the front of our row.

Señora called attendance, everyone raising their hands without interruption. It was too late in the year for kids to make jokes during roll call anymore. We were on the edge of winter, the brightly colored leaves of fall beginning to turn brittle and brown as they hit the ground. Winter vacation was just around the corner.

Most teachers were going a little easier on us now that vacation was so close, as if they didn’t want to be there anymore either. But Señora Castillo wasn’t one of those teachers. As soon as she’d marked everyone down for attendance and picked up the homework we’d all passed to the front, she began speaking in fluent Spanish, expecting everyone to keep up.

I had to suppress a groan, trying not to look too lost. Languages just weren’t my forte.

The more she spoke, the harder it was to keep up. It wasn’t long until my thoughts began to wander.

Like Sarah said, they always went back to zombies.

Well the more accurate term was Infected. After all, it was a virus that made them act the way they did, not voodoo magic or something like that. It had all started in Florida a few weeks back. The first recorded incident, a group of people attacked walking home from a party by what appeared to be a man infected by rabies. Four of the five survived the attack, and each got rabies shots, assuming they’d be safe. It wasn’t until three days later that they turned rabid themselves and began spreading their virus to more and more unsuspecting victims.

Florida had been quarantined a week ago, after the virus began to spread uncontrollably. Reports claimed it would be cleaned of Infection soon, but everyone was slowly beginning to lose faith. Most contact with people in Florida had drained to zilch. As if the whole state had disappeared.

I’d been following the story since it dropped. I had an old friend in Florida who’d told me more and more about what was really going on. Eyewitness accounts of Infected people attacking anything that moved; the desperate search for loved ones as the state was cut into sections; the rise of Safe Zones, places for uninfected people to gather while the quarantine began.

It was terrifying. Whatever was happening was bigger than anyone had expected it to get. Even though it was probably as far from Washington state as possible--even though everyone else I knew just laughed it off like I was crazy--I’d been preparing as much as possible, studying things I knew my friend wished he’d known before this all began.

Making plans of escape for every building I went to, figuring out how to create makeshift weapons out of everyday items, building stashes of food and supplies around the house, in hopes of hiding out there. Whenever I ran through my plans again, I was struck by the terror of ending up like my friend had--alone, unable to contact my family, stuck in quarantine and praying for escape. I couldn’t imagine it, being separated from my mom and little sister. It made me sick to my stomach.

A sudden raucous cough startled me out of my thoughts. Everyone in the class turned their head to the source of the sound, a petite girl with big bushy hair and bigger glasses. The cough racked her whole body back into her seat, loud enough to make Señora pause her teaching to stare with concern at her.

A boy with dark hair sat beside the girl, concern written all over his face. He moved to the edge of his seat, rubbing her back as if to help soothe the cough. He looked up at Señora and asked, “Can I take her to the nurse? She’s been like this all day.”

Señora didn’t seem so sure, but after a moment--the girl’s coughing still loud in the room--she nodded. “Take the hall pass,” she said in English.

The two left quickly, the boy holding her hand and her back as she continued to cough. We could hear her all the way down the hall, fading away with every step. The whole classroom broke into whispers as soon as they were out of earshot. Señora let out a groan, raising her hands. “Hey, hey, you are still in class, quiet down!” she ordered.

The conversations slowly petered out as she continued to scold us. Soon everyone had settled down, and she was back to asking questions about the Spanish song we were learning in class. I tried to pay attention, knowing there was going to be a vocab quiz on it in the next week, but it was hard to keep up.

My thoughts kept wandering to the girl who’d left, coughing up a lung. I’d read about the symptoms of Infection. There were a lot of conflicting sources, but I remembered one that claimed a bad cough was a surefire sign. What if…?

I had to shake my head of the thought. That was ridiculous--what, did everyone with a particularly nasty cold automatically have the zombie plague? Even my mom had one, stuffy nose and all. There had to be something else that signaled someone was going to turn Infected.

I tried to make connections in my head as class waged on, but the sound of a scream interrupted my thoughts this time.

Even Señora turned to the door, eyes wide with shock. People shouting in the halls was nothing new, but this one had been shrill as if they were being attacked. The sound of a chase echoed through the hall, and the voice began to scream for help. Students scrambled out of their seats and to the door, struggling for a better view. The only window on the door was hidden by a colorful Spanish Club banner. Señora pushed her way to the door, telling everyone to be quiet and calm down. She ripped the banner aside, looking out the window at an angle intended to block everyone else from looking out as well.

Her face turned pale.

She pulled back from the door slowly, replacing the banner and looking conflicted. She looked around the room. All was silent as we stared at her. Finally her eyes settled on something across the room. A Spanish Club trophy almost the size of a student. She marched across the room to heft it up into her hand. I could see Jared whistle at her apparent strength, but she didn’t seem to notice. She walked back to the door and whipped around as she placed her hand on the doorknob. “If anyone--ANYONE--leaves this room for even a second,” she warned, “I will personally see to it that you never graduate. Don’t you dare doubt me.”

With that, she opened the door and disappeared through it, slamming it shut tight behind her.

Immediately the whispers started up again. “What did she see?” “I don’t know, she’s too far down the hall!” “Is she going to be okay?”

I zoned it all out, staring at the door in silence. Slowly I found myself sinking back down into my desk.

What if…?

My hands began to move of their own accord. I unzipped every pocket of my backpack and flipped it upside down, dumping everything out. Papers, binders, notebooks, pencils, wrappers--it all spilled to the floor with a clatter that no one else seemed to hear. I didn’t even look at it.

I swiped textbooks off the desks around me, stuffing each inside my backpack, as many as it could hold. I managed two big ones and one smaller one before there wasn’t enough room for another. So I started to stocking-stuff it with anything else I could fit. A Spanish to English dictionary, a library book off someone’s desk, a sketchbook off of someone else’s.

“Hey!” someone called, and my head shot up, eyes wide with fear thinking I’d been caught stealing people’s things.

But whatever they were looking at, it wasn’t me. A boy was glued to the door, staring out the window with the Spanish Club banner resting on the back of his head. “Is that… DJ?” he asked.

He moved aside to let a few other people look out the window as well, gasping in surprise when they saw what he had.

“Is that blood?” one girl asked in horror.

“Maybe he’s injured?” a boy guessed, squinting out the window as DJ came closer.

“What is going on out there?”

Dread felt like the pit of a plum in my stomach. There was no way… No way...

“He’s coming this way!”

“He looks kinda… crazy…”

“Guys, he’s hurt, we should let him in and get him some help!”

“Maybe he can tell us what’s going on?”

“No,” I breathed, clutching my backpack tight in both hands.

No one heard.

The door opened and someone leaned out, waving for DJ to come closer. The sound of his running footsteps sent a shudder down my spine. He didn’t even run through the door. He lunged at the boy who’d invited him in and slammed him to the floor, teeth open wide to bite him.

Everyone screamed in horror as DJ sunk his jaw into the boy’s shoulder, biting hard enough to rip the skin. The boy shrieked in pain, struggling underneath DJ and begging him to stop.

My head became a blur. I shot to my feet, knuckles white as I gripped my heavy backpack. Sarah’s hand on my shoulder was the only thing that got me out of my daze.

She’d tied her hair up into a bun, ready to move. Jared crowded in behind her, and all she had to say was, “We need to leave.”

Jared and I each took one of her hands, and I led the race out of the classroom. DJ had moved from the boy on the floor to scramble for another victim, a girl who fell over her desk trying to get away from him. I didn’t let Sarah or Jared pause to stare in horror, dragging them through the doorway and around the body on the floor.

The hall was empty, but it was loud with the sound of the classroom behind us devolving into chaos. We raced down the hall, footsteps matching and echoing loud across the walls. I struggled to remember the plans I’d made. Where had I told myself I’d go if things began at the school? Planning it out during lunch when I was bored was different than trying to remember it after seeing an Infected himself attack my classmates.

Jared had begun to sob at the end of the line, his whole body shuddering with each shaky sound. “Wh-what was that thing?” he whimpered. “This can’t be real.”

Sarah looked back at him with concern, but I kept us moving. “Calm down,” she tried to tell him. “We made it out of there safe, didn’t we?”

I paused at an intersection of hallway, trying to figure out which of the three directions I was supposed to take. Where were we even heading? I’d had a few ideas… Hole up in a janitor’s closet maybe? No windows to be shattered in the event of an attack--but nowhere near enough room for more than one person. Find a secluded classroom? Spacious and familiar--but it looked like it’d be right in the thick of the outbreak.

Suddenly I remembered, a last minute addition to the list of ideas I’d had back when I’d first begun making escape plans. “There’s a shed,” I recalled. It stood at the edge of the baseball diamond; Jared and I had passed it countless times during practice. I looked at him, about to ask if he knew which one I was talking about--but the sight of DJ racing down the hall after us made me gasp.

Now that he was running towards us I could make out the details I hadn’t before. His mouth was covered in bloody spittle, and his shirt front was soaked in it. The look in his eyes was horrifying, a wild, crazed fury that made my blood run cold.

I didn’t hesitate like I always worried I might. I whipped around, let go of Sarah’s hand. I grabbed my backpack strap with both hands and shoved Jared out of the way to slam the backpack hard into DJ’s head.

It was hard to aim properly given how heavy my makeshift weapon was, but the force behind the swing sent DJ straight to the ground, a dent in his skull. I stood over the body, eyes wide with shock. “Holy shit. I dented his skull,” I breathed.

Jared didn’t seem impressed. “What the fuck!” he screamed, scrambling back from the body and slamming into Sarah. He jumped away from her too, screaming in horror. “What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck!”

He sank to the floor, covering his face in both hands and sobbing louder. “This is just a nightmare… I’m losing my fucking mind…”

Sarah slowly knelt beside him. “Jared, it’s… it’s okay. We’re not hurt, are we? We’ll be… fine.”

Her comforting was jerky and unsure. She wasn’t good with gentle white lies. Jared could tell. He snapped his face up to her with a disgusted expression. “Don’t fucking lie to me,” he snapped. “If this is anything like what happened in Florida then we are all fucked and you know it!”

Sarah looked at a loss for words, knowing she’d been caught. I could tell she didn’t think any of us were going to survive long. But suddenly she looked up at me, a hopeful glint in her eyes. “Maybe… but Ash has a plan, right?”

I took a sharp breath. I did have a plan. But everything was happening so fast… I was worried I hadn’t thought it through enough.

But still, an incomplete plan was better than nothing, right?

“I… do,” I told them. “There’s a little shed out near the diamond.”

Jared’s eyes sparked with recognition. “The supply shed.”

“We’re going there. It should be big enough for the three of us to stay comfortably, at least until everything blows over. But first we need supplies. We have no idea how long we’re going to be there.”

“Weapons,” Sarah suggested, her expression grim.

“Food?” Jared added, looking deep in thought.

“Medical supplies,” I finished.

All three of us looked at each other solemnly. “So… are we splitting up?” Jared asked, his voice soft.

I nodded without hesitation. “It’ll be faster. And there can’t be that many Infected--it takes a few days at least for the Infection to take over.”

Sarah looked at DJ, lying still on the ground. “So… he must have been infected for a while…”

Jared’s expression was grim. “Do you think… if we’d known earlier… we could have helped him?”

I chose not to dwell on the thought. Instead I turned forward, knowing exactly where I was going. It felt good to not be completely lost. “I’ll get the meds. You guys get the food and weapons. Don’t forget water okay?”

I looked back at them to see them nodding in agreement. “Meet you at the shed?” I asked.

Sarah looked determined. “Let’s agree to get there by the end of the day. Gives us plenty of time to gather everything.”

Jared didn’t look up at us as he whispered, “What happens if we don’t make it there in time?”

“We don’t go looking,” Sarah answered. “It’s too dangerous.” She looked at him, her expression soft now. “But don’t worry. We’ll make it.”

I nodded too. The thought of them not making it… I tried not to think about it, closing my eyes to settle my head. “All right. We meet by the end of the day. I’ll see you guys then.”

With that, I turned and took off down the hall.

* * *

 

Jared and I had ended up in the nurse’s office on more than one occasion, so it wasn’t too difficult to find my way down the familiar path. Just a few minutes after leaving Jared and Sarah, I could see it up ahead.

The sound of someone sobbing for help nearly stopped me in my tracks.

I stumbled for a moment and then skidded to a stop at the door to the nurse’s office, where the sound of a struggle filled the hall. My stomach felt sick. Did I really want to go in there?

As much as I wanted my mom and sister and friends to stay safe, a sense of self-preservation filled my chest. If I died, who would protect them? Why put myself in danger?

But I shook my head of the cowardice. Whoever was on the other side of that door clearly needed help. If I stood there and did nothing when I could help them, what kind of monster did that make me?

I ripped the door open.

My first step landed directly in a puddle of blood. I glanced down in horror to find the nurse face up on the floor, throat ripped out.

My own throat felt frozen as I looked up to see the Infected hanging over someone who fought and screamed as hard as he could against it.

The sound of the door closing behind me got the Infected’s attention.

It whipped its head around to me, and suddenly I recognized the girl from before--the girl with the cough. Her round glasses were askew now, and her fuzzy hair was flecked with blood. She still held a chunk of flesh between her teeth.

When she lunged at me, I swung the backpack as hard as I could, pretending I was trying to hit a homerun instead of save my life. It clipped her chin and sent her flying, the sound of bone crunching loud in the room as she hit the ground. Her jaw fell open too wide to not be broken.

“Oh my god…”

I looked up from her limp body to see the boy who’d offered to take her to the nurse in the first place. He stared at her too, dark eyes wide and full lips trembling as he covered his mouth with one hand. “I-I don’t know what happened,” he choked, curling his legs to his chest. “She j-just had a cold, a-and she was in a bad mood, but--”

“Are you okay?” I asked, interrupting him.

He looked like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, though I couldn’t blame him for that. He turned his gaze to me, eyes wide and maybe unseeing. Like all he could think about was that girl attacking him. I hesitantly reached my hand out towards him.

Hands still trembling he took it, let me pull him to his feet. “Th-the nurse said she c-couldn’t give her any meds and she, she just--”

I shook my head, reaching up to squeeze his shoulders. I hadn’t realized before how tall he was--he looked so small when he wrapped his arms around his stomach like he was going to be sick. “Hey, you’re alive. That’s what matters. She didn’t bite you, did she?”

He looked down at himself and cautiously shook his head. There was blood all over the seat of his pants but no holes to imply he’d been bitten. Still his eyes began to fill with tears, and he let out a tiny sob. “S-Susan, she’s my--she’s my best--” His tears began to drip down his cheeks, and his lips contorted as he held back another sob.

I didn’t know what to say. The thought of someone I loved becoming Infected was terrifying, but actually experiencing it? There probably wasn’t anything I could say to comfort him.

But I could distract him at least.

“Hey,” I started, waving my hand to catch his attention again. “Hey, look at me, what’s your name?”

He turned his gaze up to me again, surprised now more than scared. His cheeks flushed red. “I-I’m sorry…” he whispered, clumsily wiping at his tears. “I’m… My name is D-Dustin… And you’re Ashton Gniewek.”

I smiled a little bit, not surprised he knew my name. Anyone who was a fan of the school baseball team knew me. “Yeah, that’s right. But you can call me Ash, okay?” I let my voice drop to a conspiratorial whisper. “Listen, why don’t we stick together? It’ll be safer with the two of us.”

He nodded slowly, hands still trembling. Finally he curled them in the bottom of his shirt to stop the shaking and smiled. “Yes…. Okay. Thank you.”

I nodded and smiled back, patting his shoulder before turning to the nurse’s desk. I tried not to look at the nurse’s body, eyes glazing over with every second they remained open to the world around her. My goal was the cabinet of medical supplies behind the desk. “Stay close,” I advised Dustin as I headed toward it.

A textbook from my bag made quick work of the padlock, smashing it open to reveal hundreds of bottles behind each door.

I had no clue where to start.

“Fuck,” I snapped, picking up one of the bottles to read the label. “What the fuck is pantoprazole?”

“Acid reflux.”

I looked back over my shoulder at Dustin, whose face turned red again. He looked away sheepishly, shoulders hunched. “It’s uh, it’s used for acid production in the stomach. Acid reflux is um one of the things it treats…”

I squinted at him and then looked at the cabinet. Then back at him. “You, uh… do you know a lot about this stuff?”

He shrugged, and I couldn’t help but smile at the modesty. “My mom is um--she gets sick a lot so…”

I nodded, setting the pantoprazole back down. “Well, I have no clue what I’m looking for so…”

He nodded and moved forward to take my place in front of the cabinet. “Do you take any regular medications?” he asked, sifting through boxes and bottles.

I started to shake my head and then paused as I recalled. “Sarah,” I murmured. A little louder, “My friend, we’re going to meet up. She takes something for depression.”

“Okay, do you know the name of the prescription?”

“Is that important?”

He furrowed his brows at me. “She could go into withdrawal with the wrong kind--or worse.”

I grimaced, wishing I’d had the sense to ask her first. “Dammit,” I muttered, and his gaze turned soft.

“We’ll just take all of them. We can always return the ones we don’t need.”

I didn’t know how true or possible that was--after all, if things were going down as hard as it seemed, there was a strong possibility we wouldn’t be around to return them.

I kept that thought to myself as he started to pull out the medication. We looked around for something to carry them, my backpack too full. A little digging in the “Lost N Found” bin in one corner of the room revealed a lunchbox with the name Riley written along the strap. I held the bag open for him.

Dustin was methodical in his placement, lining the bottles neatly along one side and settling a small first aid kit in one corner. “Pain, headache, cold. Bandages, rubbing alcohol, cotton balls. Band-aids,” he narrated as he placed them in. It wasn’t long before the lunchbox was too full for anything more. The depression meds took up a good chunk of space, and I wished again I’d thought to ask Sarah beforehand.

Dustin shrugged the lunchbox onto one shoulder, shutting the cabinet--a sudden, outraged shriek made us both whip around.

Susan was still alive.

Her jaw was clearly broken, hanging loose and crooked against her throat, but it didn’t seem to hinder her at all.

She ran right for us.

I ducked as she launched herself over the desk, and she slammed into the wall. Scrambling onto her hands and knees, she scurried toward Dustin who screamed and backed into the cabinet with a painful smack.

My backpack was too light--I’d forgotten to put the textbook back. “Fuck, fuck,” I breathed, as Dustin screamed.

Susan was dragging him to the floor, disgusting, gurgling screeches burbled from her throat. I didn’t have time to make up for the lighter load.

The first swing smashed over the back of her head. The second caved it in. I lost count of how many times I swung, seeing red and feeling it on my hands. By the time I could hear Dustin’s screaming over the rush of blood in my ears, he was begging for me to stop and Susan’s head was a bloody pulp on the carpet.

I stumbled back, dropping my backpack to the floor. “O-oh my god,” I managed, feeling bile in the back of my throat. I’d never seen brain matter before, and now it was smeared all over my backpack and flecked between my fingers. I stared at my hands for a moment before realizing Dustin was still there.

Sobbing, horrified, he clawed at his cheeks as if he could get the tears off that way. His blunt nails left pink welts across his skin. “This isn’t real!” he shouted. “No, no, this isn’t--”

“Dustin,” I breathed, scared to move any closer to him. That was his best friend on the floor there. His best friend lying unrecognizable between his legs, and it was my fault.

He looked up at me, hands paused on his face. “S-she was going to… she was going to kill me.”

I nodded slowly, and he looked down again, his hands inching towards his mouth to cover it up as if he were going to be sick. “That… That wasn’t… That wasn’t Susan,” he breathed, and his mouth shut into a thin, grim line. Surety. “That wasn’t Susan, Susan she… She wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Dustin, I--”

“You saved my life.”

I paused in surprise, watching him shut his eyes tight, thick dark brows knitting together for a moment. Finally he gingerly pulled himself to his feet, grabbing the lunchbox and moving around Susan’s body. “We… We need to go. We can’t leave your friends waiting.”

This time as we stepped outside into the hall, it was raging with people. It wasn’t hard to tell the Infected from the healthy--bloody and deathless eyes scanned for the sound of screams, ran on all fours like animals towards new prey. Like watching a nature documentary where we were the gazelle.

“There’s so many…” Dustin whispered, pressing against my back.

I lifted my finger to my lips, reaching back for Dustin’s hand. They hadn’t noticed us yet and I planned on keeping it that way. The moment his hand slipped into mine--a moment of hesitance--I made a mad dash for the exit doors.

The sound of something chasing us stopped with a crunch as the large metal door slammed shut behind us.

Outside it was worse; cars piled up at the gate, trying to escape. Infected stood on the roofs of cars, banged on windows as if they could be let in. One had managed to rip off a windshield wiper and was stabbing it down onto the top of the car.

I felt sick to my stomach. How were there so many? How had so many gone unnoticed until the last minute?

But I couldn’t slow down. I needed to get to safety. Dustin, barely keeping up behind me, needed to get to safety.

I raced towards the familiar diamond, through the parking lot and around cars. Dustin was wheezing as he stumbled after me, but I couldn’t slow down, I couldn’t slow down.

By the time we hit the diamond he looked ready to collapse. He pulled his hand from mine and I skidded to a stop, looking back at him desperately. His eyes were shiny with tears. “I-I can’t run, I can’t--”

Infected from the parking lot had caught sight of us. I looked from them to Dustin. He looked like he was going to be sick, sinking to his knees.

“Dustin,” I breathed. The Infected began to run, one, two, more. “Dustin!”

He was trembling from head to toe, dry heaving on the grass.

He was heavier than he looked.

I wrenched him to his feet before he could protest and hefted him over my shoulders. Goddamn if I was letting him get eaten for being out of shape. It was a slower run, but the shed was so close. I forced each step forward, ignoring the crusting blood on his shirt, ignoring the sound of Infected running across the grass after us.

Crossing the threshold of the shed felt like hitting home base. Dustin scrambled off my shoulders as I slammed the door shut behind us, feeling the slam of a body on the other side. “Holy--”

“Here,” Dustin panted, thrusting a broom against the door.

There were enough to keep the door shut and arm ourselves with too. We sat on the far side of the shed, staring at the doors as the Infected slammed themselves against the door, scrabbling against the wood for any kind of purchase.

Sunlight turned to shade.

After some time the Infected wandered away. Dustin and I held our breaths before carefully setting our brooms down. They wouldn’t have done us any good, I knew. But I was more relieved we wouldn’t have to try.

Shade became moonlight. We whiled away the hours staring at our hands. I studied the welts on Dustin’s face as he carefully dabbed what looked like vaseline over the welts he’d left with his nails. He caught me staring, looking down at his lap instead as if ashamed. I looked away too.

“How long till your friends get here?” Dustin whispered, trying to find a comfortable position to curl up. His body was long. The shed was cramped.

I didn’t look at him, staring at the door instead. “They’ll get here.”

He fell asleep. But his dreams must have been fitful from the way he tossed and turned. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead, thick bangs sticking to his skin. He woke up.

Silence still.

“Do you… do you think this is happening everywhere?” he asked softly. “Do you think our parents are okay?”

I had no answers.

The occasional screech and moan from outside made my heart pound too hard to fall asleep. The night felt so long. It was the longest night I’d ever spent. Staring at the door, listening to Dustin’s irregular breathing as nightmares made him shift, trying not to wonder where Jared and Sarah had gone.

I didn’t have my phone--I’d dumped it out along with all of the crap in my backpack earlier. No way to text them--or to call my mom either.

My eyes burned like coals as the sun finally began to rise.

“Dustin,” I whispered, shaking his shoulder. He blinked awake, curled around the lunchbox and messy haired.

He stared at me confused for a long moment before finally realizing what was going on. He sat up slowly. My eyes must have been bloodshot because he looked concerned. Instead of saying something about it, he looked around. “Where are…”

I shook my head. “They’re not coming. We need water and food.”

I stood up, trying not to think about it. It wasn’t hard when I was so tired. I couldn’t dwell on it now. What I needed was food and water. What we needed was food and water. There was no other choice.

Dustin reached out to touch my shoulder, but I felt the warmth of his hand before it met its mark. I wrenched my shoulder away. “And weapons,” I added grimly, leaning close to the door to see through the wooden slats. “We need weapons too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I've never shared a completely original work online before, so I'm hopeful you guys like it! This is a bit of a prequel to my original novel (which is in the process of getting an agent and publisher), so consider it a brief taste of the main characters, Ash and Dustin. I'm planing on posting a few more prequel chapters leading up to the beginning of the novel, so stay tuned!
> 
> If you're interested in learning more about this story or about my writing, feel free to follow me and ask questions on tumblr at kcriverabooks.tumblr.com or twitter.com/kcrivera11! I'll be posting more and more about my work, my writing tips, and my experiences in the publishing process. Thank you again for reading, I adore comments so feel free to leave as many as you like!


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